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From Gary Taylor--(attorney for Odell Barnes)
I have been asked to keep everyone updated---or advised---as I can.
As most of you know, we
filed a request in the United States Court of Appeals for leave to file
a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court.
Within our petition and request we set forth all of the evidence which
we now have to show Mr. Barnes is innocent.
The Attorney General
filed their response yesterday afternoon. We responded to this pleading.
At approx. 9:00 a.m.
this morning the Court denied our request to enter federal court.
Our remaining legal avenue
is the United States Supreme Court. We are in the process of preparing
these materials.
We continue to have a
clemency application before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and
Governor Bush. In fact, this application was supplemented today with
a letter we obtained from a man in Wichita Falls.
This letter is addressed
to the District Attorney and informs the DA essentially:
1) the victim's sexual
relationship with several young men in the area;
2) the sale of the victim's
gun and the fact that Barnes was not there;
3) Johnny Ray Humphries
admission he was involved; and
4) the involvment (at
least afterward) of Pat Williams.
This gentleman not only
called and provided this information to Crime Stoppers a long time ago,
he recently called the local paper and told them. Of course no one
did anything. Even more disturbing is the DA's failure to contact
that man---and the failure to provide Odell's lawyers with a copy of the
letter.
I will try and keep you
advised.
Gary
TEXAS: (imminent execution)
A killer whose case has
drawn the support of European anti-death penalty groups was set to be executed
on Wednesday for a 1989 murder after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a
last-ditch motion for a reprieve. Odell Barnes, 31, was to be put to death
by lethal injection sometime after 6 p.m. CST, said Texas Department of
Criminal Justice spokesman Larry Todd.
"It looks like everything's
on schedule. He has been placed in a holding cell near the death chamber,"
he told Reuters.
Barnes was sentenced
to die for the Nov. 29, 1989, robbery and murder of neighbor Helen Bass
in Wichita Falls, Texas. She was raped, beaten, stabbed and shot in the
head during a robbery of her home.
His attorneys sought
a stay on grounds that Barnes was not guilty, but the U.S. Supreme Court
rejected their plea on Wednesday.
Delay Is Unlikely
Texas Lt. Gov. Rick Perry,
standing in for Texas Gov. George W. Bush while he was away campaigning
for the Republican presidential nomination, could still grant a 30-day
delay, but a spokesman said that was unlikely.
Investigators found fingerprints,
blood and semen linking Barnes to the crime. He also had Bass' gun, which
he said friends had given him. At the time of the crime, he had been out
of jail on parole for 3 weeks after serving time for his second robbery
conviction.
In their legal pleas,
Barnes' attorneys said police planted evidence and struck deals with witnesses
for false testimony to strengthen their case.
Both charges were denied
by authorities.
European groups,
particularly in France, have pleaded with Bush to stop the execution because
they believe Barnes, a black man, is the victim of a police frame-up.
On Wednesday, Jack Lang,
chairman of the French National Assembly's foreign affairs committee, told
reporters former U.S. President George Bush wrote that he had intervened
in the case with his son, the Texas governor, who could grant a 30-day
delay.
Explanation, Not Intervention
"President Bush wrote
that there was the possibility of a 30-day stay of execution but nothing
is certain,'' said Lang, who traveled to Texas last month to visit Barnes.
But Bush chief of staff
Jean Becker said the former president had merely explained the execution
process and the possibilities for reprieve in a letter to Lang.
"Someone did inquire
what the procedure is and he just provided the information, but he did
not intervene,'' Becker told Reuters.
Lang said earlier that
French President Jacques Chirac had discussed the case with the elder Bush
by telephone. A Bush spokesman confirmed the 2 talked last week, but would
not disclose the topic of conversation.
Texas leads the United
States in executions with 9 this year and 208 since resuming capital punishment
in 1982, 6 years after the Supreme Court scrapped a national death penalty
ban.
Gov. Bush has presided
over 121 executions since becoming governor in 1995, delayed none and commuted
a death sentence to life in prison in one case.
On Thursday, Betty Lou
Beets became the second woman executed in Texas since the Civil War when
Bush denied a reprieve despite international protests that she should receive
clemency because she was a battered wife.
(source: Reuters)
TEXAS/FRANCE:
French human rights campaigners
expressed disgust and anger Thursday at the "assassination" of a Texas
prisoner and denounced Governor George W. Bush as a serial killer unfit
to be the next U.S. president.
Jack Lang, a leading
Socialist party politician and rights campaigner, said in a statement that
the execution of Odell Barnes late Wednesday amounted to an assassination
and that he was ``revolted and indignant'' by this "barbaric act."
Pro-Barnes campaigners
said Bush authorized the 122th execution in Texas since he became governor
to boost his chances in this year's race for the U.S. presidency.
The execution made headline
news in France, where President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel
Jospin intervened for Barnes, 31, who was sentenced to die for the 1989
robbery and murder of a neighbor who was raped, beaten, stabbed and shot.
"The execution of Odell
Barnes is an assassination," said Lang, chairman of the French National
Assembly's foreign affairs committee. Lang flew to Texas last month to
intervene on Barnes' behalf and met Barnes in his prison in Huntsville.
"How can Governor Bush
pretend to aspire to the presidency of the United States after having perpetrated
such a crime?
"What credit would he
have to demand respect for human rights around the world when he was the
instigator of such a barbaric act?"
Colette Berthes, head
of a French citizens' group that collected money and hired lawyers to defend
Barnes, said she was "disgusted and very angry" at the execution.
"We call him a serial
killer," she said of Bush.
Bush has presided over
122 executions since becoming governor in 1995, delayed none and commuted
a death sentence to life in prison in 1 case.
The Movement against
Racism and for Friendship among Peoples said the execution was a crime
committed by the state.
"This murder will stick
like an indelible stain to the skin of George W. Bush, who has sacrificed
the life of an innocent person for his election," it said in a statement.
Lang said Barnes "has
given us an extraordinary lesson of humanity and courage which contrasts
with the savagery of the killing factory in Huntsville that executes humans
one after another."
European anti-death penalty
groups believe Barnes was the innocent victim of a police frame-up.
They donated money to
his defense and enlisted the aid of government officials to lobby for him.
(source: Reuters)
A condemned killer whose
record included nine felony convictions was executed Wednesday evening
for the murder of a Wichita Falls woman more than 10 years ago.
Hours before his execution,
when asked what he wanted for his final meal, Odell Barnes said, "Justice,
equality and world peace."
Later, on the death chamber
gurney, Barnes told his family, supporters and lawyers he loved them.
"I thank you for proving
my innocence, although it has not been acknowledged in the courts," Barnes
said. "May you continue in the struggle and may you change all that's being
done here today and in the past."
As the lethal drugs began
taking effect, he took 3 deep breaths, accompanied by gurgling sounds.
9 minutes later, at 6:34 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
The execution was delayed
by a few minutes while authorities checked a report that someone else had
confessed to the murder. Barnes' lawyer, Gary Taylor, said a report of
the confession was a hoax.
"The governor's office
did look at the so-called confession, took it under full consideration
and determined it was not valid, then proceeded with the process," prison
spokesman Larry Todd said.
Barnes, 31, insisted
he was innocent of the rape, beating, stabbing and shooting of 42-year-old
Helen Bass at her home.
Barnes, convicted of
five robberies, 2 rapes and 1 burglary, plus the capital murder, was the
10th condemned killer put to death in Texas this year and the first of
three set to die in March.
The Nov. 29, 1989, slaying
occurred three weeks after Barnes was paroled after serving 19 months of
a 10-year prison term for robbery. Earlier, he had been paroled after serving
only 3 months of an 8-year sentence for robbery.
The paroles came during
a period when Texas had too many inmates and too few prisons and state
officials were forced to release inmates to comply with federal court orders
governing prison crowding.
While Barnes' impending
execution attracted little publicity in Texas, it drew more attention in
Europe, particularly in France, where he corresponded with death penalty
opponents who contributed several thousand dollars to his defense. The
head of the French National
Assembly's foreign affairs
committee, Jack Lang, met with Barnes last month and was among two French
lawmakers to ask Gov. George W. Bush to halt the execution.
French Prime Minister
Lionel Jospin also sent a letter to Bush seeking clemency for the inmate.
But the Texas Board
of Pardons and Paroles voted 18-0 this week against recommending to Bush
that Barnes' sentence be reduced. The panel also rejected a request for
a 360-day reprieve.
The courts also refused
to halt the execution. The U.S. Supreme Court in November refused to review
his case and another attempt to review the case in the state courts was
thrown out 2 weeks ago.
Barnes and his supporters
contended his trial was botched, too hasty and based on fabricated evidence.
"That's a farce," Wichita
County District Attorney Barry Macha, who prosecuted Barnes, said this
week. "The evidence in this case is compelling. It's actually gotten better
since the trial. The DNA techniques were not as good then as they are now.
... The DNA evidence is
absolutely conclusive.
"He is a dangerous and
violent individual. And very appropriately, the jury concluded he would
be a continuing threat to our society. What's been overlooked in this case
is this individual's record."
Witnesses said they saw
Barnes jumping over the fence around the woman's house and with a gun later
in the night and that he was wearing coveralls.
Coveralls taken from
Barnes' brother's car, and identified as the ones Barnes always wore, had
blood stains that matched the victim's blood.
A ballistics expert testified
a gun linked to Barnes could not be identified as the murder weapon. Also,
a bullet fired from the weapon showed some consistencies with the bullet
recovered from the victim. Barnes' fingerprint was found on a lamp used
to beat the victim.
Barnes said he knew the
woman, had been in her house previously and that the couple had sex more
than a day earlier, accounting for the presence of his semen. He said he
could have left his fingerprint on the lamp during earlier visits.
His attorneys contended
the blood stains on the coveralls did not fit the crime scene evidence,
and a shoe print left at the scene -- allegedly from Barnes' shoe -- was
the same print on hundreds or thousands of shoes.
"I'm at peace," Barnes
said in an interview last month. "I established the foundation from day
one that I wasn't giving up, that I didn't commit the crime. If they kill
me, I haven't laid down and just accepted this. The system is not honest."
Barnes becomes the 10th
condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 209th overall
since the state resumed capital punishment on De. 7, 1982.
Barnes also becomes the
19th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 617th
overall since America resumed executions on Jan. 17, 1977.
(sources: Associated
Press & Rick Halperin)
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