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Inmate facing lethal injection Tuesday
MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer
Issue date: 6/17/08 Section: STATE
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) _ Julie Wallace looked forward to Tuesday to watch the execution of the man convicted of killing her youngest sister almost two decades ago at a home in suburban Dallas.
"I have no doubt in my heart, at all, that he did it," Wallace said of condemned prisoner Charles Dean Hood, scheduled for lethal injection in Huntsville for fatally shooting her sister, Tracie, 26, and her sister's boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46. "It's not revenge. I just want to see him punished for what he did. You took a life and you don't deserve yours."
Hood, however, denied any role in the double shooting at Williamson's Plano home in 1989.
"I didn't commit this crime," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I can't figure out why a system that's supposed to protect you is trying to kill you."
Lawyers for the former topless bar bouncer who said he was doing odd jobs and working as a bodyguard for Williamson argued in late appeals that Hood didn't get a fair trial.
His trial judge and one of his prosecutors at the time of Hood's 1990 trial were engaged in an improper and legally unethical years-long romantic relationship they tried to keep hidden, Hood's attorneys argued in appeals to the state courts. They raised similar contentions to Gov. Rick Perry, urging he issue a 30-day reprieve to investigate the claim.
"Texans are fair. They will not stand for a man's execution when the judge and the prosecutor were in a romantic relationship or there was even an appearance of bias," said Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas Defender Service, a legal group opposed to capital punishment and whose senior staff attorney, Gregory Wiercioch, is Hood's lead lawyer.
"The U.S. and Texas constitutions guarantee an unbiased judge, and Mr. Hood was denied that fundamental right," Keilen said.
Hood's lawyers also contended in a filing Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court that jurors received improper instructions when they decided Hood should be put to death because they were unable to properly consider his poor childhood and physical and mental problems. And they raised questions, rejected Monday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whether Hood should have been entitled to a state-provided lawyer to prepare a clemency request.
"I have no doubt in my heart, at all, that he did it," Wallace said of condemned prisoner Charles Dean Hood, scheduled for lethal injection in Huntsville for fatally shooting her sister, Tracie, 26, and her sister's boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46. "It's not revenge. I just want to see him punished for what he did. You took a life and you don't deserve yours."
Hood, however, denied any role in the double shooting at Williamson's Plano home in 1989.
"I didn't commit this crime," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I can't figure out why a system that's supposed to protect you is trying to kill you."
Lawyers for the former topless bar bouncer who said he was doing odd jobs and working as a bodyguard for Williamson argued in late appeals that Hood didn't get a fair trial.
His trial judge and one of his prosecutors at the time of Hood's 1990 trial were engaged in an improper and legally unethical years-long romantic relationship they tried to keep hidden, Hood's attorneys argued in appeals to the state courts. They raised similar contentions to Gov. Rick Perry, urging he issue a 30-day reprieve to investigate the claim.
"Texans are fair. They will not stand for a man's execution when the judge and the prosecutor were in a romantic relationship or there was even an appearance of bias," said Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas Defender Service, a legal group opposed to capital punishment and whose senior staff attorney, Gregory Wiercioch, is Hood's lead lawyer.
"The U.S. and Texas constitutions guarantee an unbiased judge, and Mr. Hood was denied that fundamental right," Keilen said.
Hood's lawyers also contended in a filing Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court that jurors received improper instructions when they decided Hood should be put to death because they were unable to properly consider his poor childhood and physical and mental problems. And they raised questions, rejected Monday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whether Hood should have been entitled to a state-provided lawyer to prepare a clemency request.
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