death penalty news--TEXAS

[Rick Halperin <rhalperi@post.cis.smu.edu>]

Monday, Dec. 15, 1997--




TEXAS:

Conjure the image: 

An attractive, 38-year-old woman is strapped to a gurney in Texas' 
execution chamber, her dark, shoulder-length curls splayed across the 
antiseptic white sheet that covers the hard, cold deathbed.  Her 
charcoal-colored eyes are transfixed ethereally while she utters her 
final entreaty to the God who she says miraculously transformed her in 
jail.  

As a lethal cocktail pumps through her veins, she may involuntarily arch 
upward -- straining against the leather straps -- and gasp or cough a 
couple of times before her final breath is expelled in a matter of 
seconds.  

That, critics contend, is an image that will haunt Texans if Karla Faye 
Tucker, a condemned killer from Houston, is executed early next year. 

Contrast that mental portrait of Tucker with the one that state's 
attorneys, victims' rights groups and others say should be replayed in 
people's minds: 

A wild-eyed, 23-year-old prostitute -- after a weekend orgy of methadone, 
heroin, Dilaudid, Valium, Placidyls, Somas, Wygesics, Percodan, Mandrax,
marijuana, rum and tequila -- smiles maniacally at 27-year-old Jerry Lynn 
Dean.  It ticked her off that he once parked his oil-leaking motorcycle 
in her living room.  She takes her 1st swing with a pickax.  Flesh tears. 
Blood spurts.  Bones crack as the 3-foot-long tool thuds first against 
Dean and later against his companion, 32-year-old Deborah Thornton.  By 
the time the screams end, Tucker and her accomplice will have hacked 
their victims more than 20 times. 

The June 1983 murder was 1 of the grisliest in Houston history, and 
Tucker could well become the 1st woman to be executed in Texas since the
1860s.  Her accomplice, Daniel Ryan Garrett, also was sentenced to die for 
his part in the crime.  His case was sent back for retrial on appeal, but 
he died of liver disease in 1993 while waiting for a new trial, still 
behind bars. 

In a state with the most active execution chamber in the nation -- 37 
death sentences have been carried out this year alone and 144 since 1982 --
Tucker's case is likely to bring unprecedented scrutiny on Texas and, at 
least temporarily, refuel the debate over capital punishment. 

Already, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has been besieged by 
requests from media around the world wanting to interview the woman who
once bragged to her sister that she was sexually gratified each time she 
axed her victims. 

Death penalty opponents, religious leaders and thousands of other people 
-- mostly outside Texas -- are expected to mount an intense campaign in the
coming weeks to try to persuade Gov. George W. Bush to commute Tucker's 
sentence to life imprisonment. 

Democrat Garry Mauro -- who is challenging Bush's re-election bid -- said 
he's glad he does not have to face the issue. 

"Watching Governor Bush wrestle with that decision, that's the only thing 
I can think of right now, the only reason I can think of right now that 
I'm glad I'm not governor," Mauro said.  "I do not know what I would do. 
It's a tough issue.  I wish him well on coming to a resolution on it." 

Televangelist Pat Robertson told 60 Minutes in a recent interview that 
Tucker has his support and that if Bush "lets this sweet woman of God 
die, he's a man who shows no mercy." 

But that sentiment is not necessarily shared by conservative Christians 
in Texas. 

Texas Christian Coalition President Dick Weinhold said he not only 
personally disagrees with Robertson but knows of no organized effort to 
spare Tucker's life. 

"This case has two main themes," Weinhold said.  "One is compassion, and 
one is consequences. 

"I have a lot of compassion for Karla Faye Tucker.  She seems to have 
strong testimony.  Her salvation and conversion seem to be...very 
genuine.  And her life seems to really have undergone a transformation.  
So I'm delighted.  That is great. 

"The consequences are that she committed a heinous act.  There were 2 
individuals that were murdered.  The consequences of her crime call for 
her death.  I don't believe the compassion side should overrule the 
consequences in this case." 

"As a Christian, I'm always excited when other people come to Christ, 
whether it's in a jailhouse or on Wall Street.  But I think there's still 
consequences for our actions. 

Dudley Sharp of the Houston-based victims' rights group Justice for All 
said he expects "religious leaders from all over the world -- not just 
the pope -- will be putting pressure on the governor" to spare Tucker's 
life. 

For clues about how the coming weeks might play in Texas, rewind to North 
Carolina, 1984. 

It was there that "Death Row Granny" Margie Velma Barfield, a born-again 
Christian who was posthumously praised by Billy Graham for her impact on
other prisoners, became the 1st woman to be put to death in the modern 
era of the capital punishment. 

The portly, bespectacled 52-year-old private nurse and former Sunday 
school teacher was convicted of lacing her boyfriend's food with rat 
poison.  She later admitted to poisoning 3 others, including her 
mother.  

Her case also became a last-minute political issue in a tough U.S. Senate 
election in which liberal Democrat Gov. Jim Hunt challenged Republican
incumbent Sen. Jesse Helms. 

Political analysts said Hunt was doomed to be hurt politically regardless 
of what he did.  Had he commuted Barfield's sentence, he risked 
alienating his conservative pro-death penalty constituency.  Some analysts 
said at the time that his refusal to show compassion toward the woman 
may have persuaded liberal, anti-death penalty voters to stay away from 
the polls. 

Joe Freeman Britt, the former prosecutor who sent Barfield to death row, 
remembers the pressure that mounted in North Carolina. 

"There were all these Velma Barfield support groups that grew up all 
around the nation, all over North Carolina, European countries -- 
England, France, Finland," Britt recalled.  "Everybody involved in the 
case got tons of letters every day about it from all over the world.  
That then generated a certain political pressure in the case." 

But unlike Tucker's jailhouse conversion, Britt said, Barfield had always 
professed to being a God-fearing, church-going woman.  He said Barfield
bolstered her image as a devout Christian by asking her employers -- the 
families who hired her to care for ailing, elderly relatives whom she later
poisoned -- for Wednesday nights and Sundays off so she could go to 
church. 

Once imprisoned she, too, began leading Bible studies and counseling 
troubled female felons.  She also uttered a deathbed apology. 

The image the media portrayed most often was that of a grandmother 
kneeling in prayer in prison, Britt added, and some of the victims' 
relatives had a difficult time believing she was capable of the crimes. 

Britt, however, said he was unfazed by arguments that Barfield should not 
be executed because of her Christianity -- a claim of which he was 
skeptical. 

"I probably brought more people to the Lord than Billy Graham," he said 
of his work as a prosecutor.  "I mean when they go to prison, they all 
find the Lord...I hope it's true.  I hope they do that.  And if (Tucker 
has) had this experience, that's wonderful.  It prepares her better for 
the judgment under the law." 

Although death penalty opponents had predicted a public outrage if North 
Carolina proceeded with the execution of Barfield, Britt said that never
materialized. 

"I think the biggest flap came from other parts of the country and 
particularly overseas...," he said. 

One key difference between Tucker's and Barfield's cases is the 
commutation process. 

While North Carolina law allows its governor wide discretion in 
determining whether and when to pardon felons or reduce their sentences, 
the Texas Constitution allows a governor to take such action only if the 
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles 1st recommends it.  And even if the 
board does, the governor may still reject a commutation. 

Additionally, the state constitution allows the governor to grant a 
one-time, 30-day delay in an execution.  Bush has never granted a 30-day 
reprieve, but his predecessor, Democrat Ann Richards, did so twice. 

Tucker has not yet filed a petition for a reprieve or commutation with 
the parole board, but her attorney said he plans to ask the governor to 
commute her sentence. 

A Jan. 30 execution date has informally been targeted, attorney George 
"Mac" Secrest of Houston, said he plans to ask Bush to commute his 
client's sentence. 

In interviews with the Houston Chronicle last week, several of the 18 
parole board members indicate Tucker will have a tough time convincing 
them that her death sentence should not be carried out. 

"It is definitely an uphill challenge," said board member Gerald Garrett, 
who works in the board's Gatesville office. 

Any pleas Tucker might make based on her turning her life over to God 
apparently will not carry much weight with some parole board members. 

Male convicts have raised the issue before and been rejected. 

"Religious conversion is not a factor in anything we do," said Victor 
Rodriguez, board chairman.  "I don't expect it to be a factor in this case 
either." 

Karla Faye Tucker is 1 of 7 killers on Texas' death row for women at the 
Mountain View Prison in Gatesville, about 40 miles west of Waco.  The 
others are: 

Darlie Lynn Routier, a 27-year-old Rowlett homemaker, convicted last 
February in the July 1996 murder of her 5-year-old son, Damon, who was
stabbed to death along with his 6-year-old brother, Devon. 

Pamela Lynn Perillo, a barmaid, convicted of the February 1980 robbery-
slaying of Bob Skeens, 26, of Houma, La., 1 of 2 men strangled at a
house in Houston. 

Betty Lou Beets, a cashier and waitress, convicted of the August 1983 
shooting death of her 5th husband at their home near Gun Barrel City in 
East Texas. 

Frances Elaine Newton, who worked in accounting, convicted of the April 
1987 slaying in Harris County of her husband and 2 children, ages 7 and
21 months. 

Erica Yvonne Sheppard, unemployed, convicted of the June 1993 robbery-
murder of a Houston woman, whom she attacked while carrying clothing
from her car into her apartment. 

Cathy Lynn Henderson, an Austin baby-sitter, convicted of the January 
1994 abduction and murder of a 3-month-old boy she had been baby-sitting. 








Darlie Routier, sentenced to die for killing her son, will appear on the 
pages of Cosmopolitan magazine in what a prosecutor called an ironic 
twist.  

An editor of the glamor publication says Routier, 27, is someone the 
magazine's readers can identify with. 

"The woman could well be one of our readers," said Catherine Romano, the 
magazine's 2nd-in-command. 

Routier will be featured on the pages of the self-described "magazine for 
the woman who wants to have it all" in February. 

Cosmopolitan plans also to publish excerpts of Hush Little Babies, one of 
2 recently released books on the June 1996 stabbing deaths of Devon
Routier, 6, and Damon Routier, 5. 

Routier was accused of killing both boys but convicted only in the 
younger boy's death.  She maintains that an intruder broke into the house, 
slashed her throat and killed the children. 

Romano said Routier's profile was never intended to be a "Cosmo visits 
Cell Block 99," even though the magazine attempted to bring a stylist 
into the prison to prevent a "bad photograph." 

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice denied access.  An agency 
spokesman, Larry Fitzgerald, said the 7 women now on death row "are what
they are." 

Prosecutors in Routier's trial portrayed her as a woman obsessed with her 
appearance and material possessions. 






Rick Halperin
AI-Texas

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