Houston woman gets another date for execution
The attorney for Frances Newton says he will try to
exonerate her
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
A Houston woman on death row who was temporarily
spared by Gov. Rick Perry moments before her execution
last year faces another execution date.
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State District Judge Jim Wallace on Thursday scheduled
Frances Newton to die by injection Sept. 14, said
David Dow, one of her attorneys and founder of the
Texas Innocence Network.
Newton was convicted of shooting to death her husband
and their two young children in 1987. Prosecutors said
she killed them to collect $100,000 in insurance
money. Newton said she thinks they were killed by a
drug dealer she knew only as Charlie to whom her
husband owed money.
Dow said he plans to attempt to exonerate Newton
before she is executed. He said he hopes to test
bloody carpet from the crime scene.
"There are other things we can do, and we plan on
doing them," he said.
Dow said Newton, 40, remains confident she will be
proven innocent.
"She's obviously disappointed that a date has been
set, but she is still hopeful that the truth will come
out," he said.
Hours before her scheduled execution Dec. 1, Perry
granted Newton a 120-day reprieve to give her
attorneys time to investigate questions about the
evidence used to convict her.
They wanted to retest ballistics evidence and a skirt
she wore the night her family was killed.
Retesting of bullets from the crime scene matched a
gun prosecutors say was the murder weapon and which
was linked to Newton.
Wallace denied defense requests to test the skirt.
Tests on the skirt before Newton's 1988 trial showed
nitrates on her dress, which can be caused by exposure
to gunfire.
Newton has maintained that her dress was soiled with
garden manure, which may have caused similar test
results.
New technology can distinguish between evidence of
gunfire and garden manure, but prosecutors said the
1988 procedure was a "destructive test" that
eliminated any chemical evidence, rendering additional
tests inconclusive.
Prosecutors have also said the skirt was stored with
other evidence from the crime scene and contaminated
by it.
The 120-day reprieve expired at the end of March, and
the Harris County District Attorney's Office requested
a new execution date be set, Dow said.
Another of Newton's attorneys, John LaGrappe, said he
may file a federal appeal "alleging prosecutorial
misconduct in the way that the dress was handled."