Last-ditch efforts to save inmateBlack leaders predict dire consequences if Frances Newton is executed tonightLocal black leaders warned Tuesday of divine and political repercussions if condemned killer Frances Newton is executed tonight in Huntsville.
The warnings came during an emotional morning news conference at the Mickey Leland Federal Building downtown, during which U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee called on authorities to grant Newton a new trial. Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said she would also ask the nation's solicitor general to intervene in the case.
"The American nation values life," she said, "and Frances Newton deserves to have her life spared. ... It's not a handout that Newton should have her day in court again."
Jackson Lee likened the last-minute effort to save Newton to Texans who "through affection and love stood last at the Alamo" and declared that, "we're standing for the life of Texas."
Newton, 40, is to be executed at 6 p.m. for the 1987 murders of her husband, Adrian, 23, and the couple's 7-year-old son and 21-month-old daughter to gain insurance benefits.
She would be the third woman executed in Texas since executions were resumed in 1982 and the 13th killer executed this year. She also would be the first black woman put to death in Texas during that time.
Newton's chances to escape death by injection have narrowed to a last-minute appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeal to Gov. Rick Perry to grant a 30-day stay of execution. Last December, Perry granted Newton an execution-day stay that provided four months to retest evidence crucial to her case.
In the past week, petitions filed with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles have been rejected.
Texas Innocence Network attorneys David Dow and Jared Tyler, both University of Houston law professors, have centered their efforts to save Newton's life on claims that multiple pistols were seized as evidence the night of the killings.
Those weapons, they contend, could have been switched during ballistics testing, thereby wrongly indicating that the gun Newton hid in a vacant house after the shootings was the murder weapon. Newton has said she removed the pistol from her apartment and hid it to keep her husband from getting into a violent encounter with drug dealers.
Much of the evidence and testimony supporting their multiple-pistol theory, defense attorneys say, was developed after Newton's initial trial.
Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson denies that more than one weapon was recovered. Tests on three occasions have identified the weapon Newton hid as the murder weapon, Wilson said.
On Tuesday, Jackson Lee called upon Perry to grant a stay so that issues related to the pistol and other matters can be sorted out. Last week, the Court of Criminal Appeals declined to consider the defense team's gun arguments, contending they already had been reviewed and discounted.
Nation of Islam Minister Robert Muhammad said Tuesday that he had completed a week of fasting and prayer for "God to move hearts and minds for justice."
Muhammad repeated the charge that Newton's first trial attorney, Ron Mock, provided inadequate counsel. Mock, whose career reached a recent low when the State Bar of Texas suspended him, failed to interview witnesses or perform other basic research in the case, appeals lawyers have claimed. The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, has determined Newton received adequate representation.
"Mock," Muhammad said, "has his own wing on death row."
Noting that Houston and Texas had generated international goodwill by welcoming tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees, he added that the state could "ruin that in one swoop" with Newton's execution.
He warned, too, of divine retribution for what he deemed an unjust execution.
"I fear for the state for what God might do," he said. "If the hurricane had traveled just 2 degrees west, it could have been here."
Divine repercussions aside, Ovide Duncantell, director of the Black Heritage Society, predicted GOP overtures to blacks could fall flat if Perry, a Republican, fails to act.
"There will be more damage to the Republican Party," he said.
SHAPE director Deloyd Parker urged Perry to exercise caution in going ahead with Newton's execution.
"We believe she's innocent," he said. "But if you kill her tomorrow and you find out later that she is innocent, there's nothing you can do to undo it.
"Think about that, governor. Think about it."
www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/front/3352949