Texecuted August 8, 2002
            T.J. Jones
      A Juvenile - Only 17 at the time of the crime

            "Amnesty International and the European Union have both demanded
            Texas Gov. Rick Perry halt Jones' execution, claiming it would violate
                    the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights..."

                          News about T.J's Execution

            Texas man convicted of murder at 17 executed

An 8th-grade dropout who was a teenager when he was convicted of killing
an East Texas man during a carjacking more than 8 years ago apologized
for the crime and was executed today.
"I would like to say to the victim's family I regret the pain I put y'all
through. I hope you can move on after this," T.J. Jones said, looking at
relatives of his victim.
Then Jones, 25, turned to a second window where his mother was watching
and said, "Mom, I love y'all. Take care. I'm ready."
He gasped and stopped breathing. Jones was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.,
7 minutes after the lethal dose began. His mother sobbed quietly and was
comforted by Jones' aunt.

Jones was 17 when he was arrested with 3 companions for gunning down 75-year-old retired electrician Willard Davis, who had surrendered his car to them outside his home in Longview, about 190 miles north of Houston.
"They tried to make him get in the back seat and he said: 'No. Here's my car. Please let me go to my wife,'" recalled Alfonso Charles, an assistant district attorney in Gregg County who helped prosecute Jones.   "And T.J. shot him right between the eyes."
Jones' lawyers filed no late appeals to try to halt the punishment.
"He has exhausted his remedies," attorney Don Davidson said.
Jones' sentence and his age at the time of the shooting renewed criticism from traditional death penalty opponents. As a teenage offender, Jones "would not be facing this punishment in almost any other country in the world," Amnesty International said in a statement.
"He's not a juvenile," Gregg County District Attorney Bill Jennings responded. "Under Texas law he is an adult and he's in an adult system.
"He did an adult crime and he deserves to receive an adult penalty, which in this case 12 jurors decided should be death."
Texas is among 22 states that allow capital punishment for 17-year-olds.
Jones was the 12th Texas inmate and the 20th in the United States executed since 1976 for a murder committed when the killer was younger than 18. In May, and with much greater outcry from capital punishment opponents, Napoleon Beazley received lethal injection in Texas for
killing the father of a federal judge. Beazley was 17 at the time of the crime.
"I'm pretty sure of my fate here," Jones, who declined to speak with reporters in the weeks leading up to his execution, said on a Web site sponsored by an anti-death penalty organization. On the site, he asked for pen pals "who will give me moral support and if possible help me to make the rest of my stay here as comfortable as can be in this
situation."
Court records show Jones and 3 partners approached Davis the mid-afternoon of Feb. 2, 1994 and demanded his red Chrysler LeBaron. When Davis surrendered the car but refused to go with them, he was shot with a .357-caliber Magnum.
Witnesses saw Jones and his companions get in the car and drive away.  Davis' wife of 56 years heard the shots from inside her house and was among the 1st to see the body.
All 4 teenagers were arrested soon after the shooting.
"The car made it a short distance before a tire blew out," Jennings said.
Jones' partners were convicted of engaging in organized criminal activity and received long prison terms.
Testimony showed Jones lived in a gang house with the then-16-year-old mother of his child and was addicted to smoking marijuana laced with embalming fluid. He had been arrested repeatedly as a juvenile for burglary and police said the gang was believed responsible for numerous assaults.
3 days before the Davis killing, authorities determined Jones shot a convenience store clerk during a robbery in nearby Tyler. The victim survived 5 bullet wounds and testified against Davis in the punishment phase of the capital murder trial.
Another 2 executions are set for next week, and 2 more for later in the month, including Toronto Patterson, who was 17 in 1995 when he was arrested for shooting a mother and her 2 young daughters at their home in Dallas.
Jones becomes the 20th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 2nd in as many days. Richard William Kutzner, 59, was executed Wednesday for killing a Montgomery County woman during a robbery. Kutzner had a 2nd death sentence for a similar Harris County slaying. Jones was the 276th condemned inmate put to death in Texas since
the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982.
Jones becomes the 40th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 789th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)


The life of T.J. Jones was over long before his execution

T. J. Jones welcomed his execution. He refused to contest it or file appeals for clemency, though he had good cause.
T.J. was 17 when he shot and killed Willard Davis of Longview. Texas does not spare children the death penalty. But there were other issues T.J., 25, might have pursued. His adult body harbored an adolescent.
The high school drop out loved to play with toy cars, trucks and airplanes and to watch cartoons. T.J. had an IQ (78) that put him near --if not within -- parameters of mental retardation.
"This is a boy that may look 17, but on the inside, psychologically, he is probably more like a 10- or 12-year-old," said clinical psychologist Craig Lee Moore in testimony at T.J.'s 1994 trial.
"We have a very poorly socialized immature adolescent -- a boy who is mostly puzzled by how the world works, who bluffs his way through."
Neither T.J.'s status as a minor nor his possible mental retardation would prevent his execution last week. A predominantly white jury sentenced the African American youngster to death for carjacking and killing Davis, who was white.
While 22 states permit the execution of juvenile offenders, few actually carry them out. Texas does so with hardly a 2nd thought. It does discriminate in applying the death penalty to minors. Like T.J., those sentenced to death tend to be poor, undereducated and black or Latino.
Juveniles are more likely to be sentenced to death if their victims are white.
Long before the legal system snared T.J., he was on a pathway to hell. It is the kind of hell too many African American youths are living because too many parents are failing.
So eager was T.J. to escape his pain that he refused to fight his execution. He embraced it.
He smiled at his mom as he was strapped to a gurney in Texas' death chamber. As lethal fluids flowed through his bloodstream, he apologized to Geraldine Davis, the wife of the man he shot and killed 8 years ago.  It was an unusual display for a young man who had rarely -- if ever --
shown emotion, according to court records.
As a boy, T.J. didn't cry when his mom spanked him. He didn't show grief at his grandmother's funeral several years ago even though Mamie Jackson had been the closest and most caring adult in his life. And at his trial, T.J. didn't appear remorseful over Davis' killing.
His mental slowness dulled his ability to demonstrate emotion. But T.J. was in pain. Deep pain.
T.J. had no memory of his dad, who abandoned him months after he was born.
Thaddeus Roy Jones beat his wife, even while she was pregnant with T.J. Pamela Jones said he once "whipped (her) with an extension cord and knocked (me) down."
Later, an alcoholic boyfriend continued the abuse. During those episodes, T.J. sought refuge.
 "He would kind of hum and shake . . . and he would rock," Pamela Jones said.
She never reached for her boy, never pulled him close as he shook and hummed. He was left alone to rationalize his fears and the violence unfolding around him.
T.J. was a loner who mostly stayed at home. His mom worked 2 jobs, spending little time with her only child. The family moved often, and he repeated 4th grade. In the 9th grade, he dropped out. At 17, T.J. still was rocking himself to sleep.
Moore called that a "soft neurological sign," meaning that children with poor prenatal care or an inherited tendency have mild neurological deficits at birth.
At 14, T.J. began drinking alcohol and ultimately graduated to "Whack"-- marijuana laced with embalming fluid. Moore said T.J. used those substances to calm his "psychic pain."
Whack was the perfect drug for T.J. A quick, intense high. A habit that is not terribly expensive and not easily detected. Whack has side effects, including brain damage. T.J. liked it because of its hallucinogenic effects.
He preferred the world according to Whack.
His disturbed childhood and mental deficits steered T.J. down the wrong path.
There was no father to lead him the right way. No adult to help with homework. No mother's touch of tenderness. Even when T.J. took an interest in school gymnastics it was beyond his reach. Pamela Jones couldn't afford the fee.
T.J. found affection and belonging with local punks. He shacked up with them and a girlfriend at the "Dawg House," on Edgefield Street in Longview. That is where he got the .357 that he used to shoot Davis.
And it is where T.J.'s life really ended.
Moore said that T.J. could have been rescued if someone had intervened -- when T.J. broke into his middle school, when he showed difficulty with schoolwork, when he continued playing with toys as a teenager or when he didn't cry during spankings.
It's true the criminal justice system executed T.J. But a breakdown in the black family and community was the real killer.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

Attention focuses on tonight's execution of inmate T.J. Jones, sentenced to death for the 1994 killing of a 75-year-old Longview man, is scheduled to become the second man executed in as many days if his sentence is carried out this evening. Jones' case has received some international attention because he was 17 years old at the time of the murder.
Jones was part of a group of 4 young people drinking at a friend's house during the early afternoon hours of Feb. 2, 1994. Jones asked his friends if they were "down for a jack," or if they wanted to steal a car. They agreed, and after getting a .357-caliber pistol, the group saw 75-year-old Willard Davis backing out of his driveway in his car. Jones approached the car and told Davis to get out. He did, and Jones' three
friends got in.
Jones then told Davis to get back in the car so he could be taken to a more secluded area and robbed; Davis refused. According to forensic evidence used at Jones' trial, he was between 2 and 3 feet away when he fired at Davis, striking him in the head and killing him instantly.
Jones was arrested several blocks from the scene less than an hour later after abandoning the car. Edgar Fletcher Jr., 19, Sanford Ray Jimerson, 18 and Latecia Howard, 17, were also taken into custody. According to his cellmate in the Gregg County Jail, Jones calmly described how Davis had told him he would have to kill him to take his car, at which point Jones said he shot him.
During Jones' trial, clinical psychologist Craig Moore, called by the defense, described him as "profoundly immature" and distrustful of others. He also said Jones has an IQ of 78, a low but acceptable
intelligence level, and that his continued use of marijuana laced with embalming fluid was addictive and might have caused brain damage.
Moore also said Jones was still developing at the age of 17, but admitted he presented "a distinct propensity for future risks to society."
As part of its case, the prosecution told the jury Jones had been accused of shooting the clerk of a convenience store several times just 3 days before Davis' murder. The victim, Willard Davis, was shot in the head, chest, arm and shoulder and was permanently disabled as a result of the attack. On Oct. 24, 1994, Jones was found guilty of capital murder, and 4 days later, he was sentenced to death.
International activist groups have taken up the cause of Jones, now 25.
Amnesty International and the European Union have both demanded Texas Gov. Rick Perry halt Jones' execution, claiming it would violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which bars the execution of individuals who committed their crimes before age 18. The United States is not a signatory to the treaty, and a 17 year old is legally considered an adult in Texas. Perry has rejected similar demandsin the past.
Jones has requested his lawyers not seek clemency or any further appeals.
Barring a last-minute stay, Jones will be executed sometime after 6 p.m. in the death chamber of the Huntsville "Walls" Unit.

(source: Huntsville Item)


NATIONAL COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY----PRESS RELEASE
On The Execution Dates for TJ Jones and Toronto Patterson

CONTACT:
David Elliot, NCADP Communications Director
202-543-9577, ext. 16
cell phone: 202-607-7036
delliot@ncadp.org
www.ncadp.org
920 Pennsylvania Ave. SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
 

RACE, GEOGRAPHY AND THE EXECUTION OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS:
ONCE AGAIN, TEXAS LEADS THE PACK

Aug. 5, 2002 - The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Monday called on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to acknowledge the role that race and geography play in the application of the death penalty, particularly as it relates to juvenile offenders, and to stay the scheduled executions of
T.J. Jones and Toronto Patterson.
Since executions resumed in the United States in the 1970s, 19 juvenile offenders have been put to death. The past four such executions have each taken place in Texas and each has involved an African American inmate. If the scheduled Aug. 8 execution of Jones and the scheduled Aug. 28
execution of Patterson are allowed to proceed, it will mean that the last 6 juvenile offender executions in the United States all will have taken place in Texas and all will have involved African American inmates.
"Texas has accounted for 11 of the 19 juvenile offender executions in the United States during the past 2 decades," said NCADP Executive Director Steven W. Hawkins. "7 of the 11 juvenile offenders executed in Texas have been African American or Latino. The death penalty in the United States disproportionately affects people of color and this is even more true when it comes to juvenile offenders."
Hawkins noted that of the 81 juvenile offenders on death row in the United States, 52, or almost 2/3, are people of color. Of the 81 inmates, just over 1/2 - 42 - are from Texas or Alabama.
The past 4 juvenile offenders executed in Texas were Napolean Beazley, executed May 28; Gerald Mitchell, executed Oct. 22, 2001; Gary Graham, executed June 22, 2000; and Glen McGinnis, executed Jan. 25, 2000.
Hawkins added that Texas is speeding up its pace of executing juvenile offenders even as the international community shuns the practice. Only three countries - the United States, Iran and the Democratic Republic of Congo - currently execute juvenile offenders. Just last week, Pakistan
announced it is sparing the lives of 72 juvenile offenders while in the Philippines, the Supreme Court ordered the removal of a dozen juvenile offenders from death row, ruling that their execution would violate the law.
"Such executions not only violate international norms, they also offend human decency," Hawkins said. "The mind of a juvenile offender is by definition less developed than the mind of an adult. Juvenile minds do not handle social pressure, instinctual urges and other stresses the way that adult minds do. Juvenile offenders therefore cannot be held to the same degree of culpability as adults, just as mentally retarded people cannot be held to the same degree of culpability. We now ban the execution of mentally retarded offenders. There can be little
justification for applying a different standard when it comes to juveniles."

                 T.J. JONES ORIGINAL PEN PAL REQUEST

My name is T.J. Jones and I've been on Texas Death Row for 5 years now, and I'm seeking pen pals all over the world who are interested in writing someone like me.  I'm pretty sure of my fate here, so I'm looking for a pen pal who will give me moral support and if possible help me to make the rest of my stay here as comfortable as can be in this situation.  My interests are reading, listening to slow music, and looking for people who have knowledge in new age books like metaphysics, magick and the like.  I'm 23 years old and anybody male or female around my age or older I would prefer, but will answer all letters.  Here's to finding new and interesting friends !

                            T.J. Jones  999133
                       Polunsky Unit 12-AE63
                         3872 FM 350 South
                           Livingston, Texas
                                 77351   USA
 


                     The CCADP offers free webpages to over 350 Death Row Inmates
                                              Contact us for more information.
               The Eyes Of The World Are Watching Now
                                                       "The Eyes Of The World Are Watching Now"

This page was last updated August 14, 2002                Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty
This page is maintained and updated by Dave Parkinson and Tracy Lamourie in Toronto, Canada