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Thread: John Lezell Balentine - Texas Execution - February 8, 2023

  1. #21
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    I get it..My issue with this stay of execution is, Balentine's own mother would not step up for him at the penalty phase. How is that ineffective counsel?

    I live in Virginia, and the average stay on death row is 8 to 10 years. Virginia has a well established appeals process. Virginia assesses mental competency prior to trial, DNA tests are established, and Virginia has all ducks in line before they go to a grand jury for a capital indictment.

    There is nothing wrong with the appeals process. It works. The number of appeals isn't the issue either. The issue is the judges that are supposed to uphold state and federal law and TRY to legislate from the bench...even if the ruling is a temporary stay!

  2. #22
    Senior Member Frequent Poster stixfix69's Avatar
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    Anyone know how long these type of stays last? Did this buy him a few more years?

  3. #23
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    It is about the same as the Cleve Foster appeal in Texas..a couple months at the most.

  4. #24
    Senior Member Frequent Poster stixfix69's Avatar
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    Thanks for the info....Also read the blog on the Woods case, pretty interesting stuff.....

  5. #25
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    With Woods..he was at the scene, and Texas has LAW OF PARTY..so he is guilty under Texas law. With the links that were provided try to keep in mind those are interpretations of those who are trying to save his life. Read some of the actual appeals.

  6. #26
    I disagree big time with your opinion that executions should be carried out within a 2 year time limit. I know all of us pro-death penalty folks get frustrated when we see death row inmates languish on the row for 25 to 30 years, but the answer is certainly not to rush to execute them as fast as possible. I can understand the victims' families feeling that way but for everyone else, unless you're just looking for a bloodbath of executions that's just totally unnecessary.

    Obviously, the appeals process is implemented to ensure that there were no errors during the trial and to make sure that we are not executing the wrong man. Everyone remember Cameron Todd Willingham?? There ya go. I definitly agree we need to streamline the appeals process in some states (Idaho, Cali, Nevada, Utah etc)... but in others like Virginia and Texas, the appellate process is just fine. Every inmate's case is going to take time and we can't place time limits on their actual executions, but it is their APPEALS that need to be resolved in a more timely fashion..

    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    I get it..My issue with this stay of execution is, Balentine's own mother would not step up for him at the penalty phase. How is that ineffective counsel?

    I live in Virginia, and the average stay on death row is 8 to 10 years. Virginia has a well established appeals process. Virginia assesses mental competency prior to trial, DNA tests are established, and Virginia has all ducks in line before they go to a grand jury for a capital indictment.

    There is nothing wrong with the appeals process. It works. The number of appeals isn't the issue either. The issue is the judges that are supposed to uphold state and federal law and TRY to legislate from the bench...even if the ruling is a temporary stay!
    This was actually very well said. That's why I say all the time Stephen Reinhardt and Harry Pregerson BOTH need to be ejected off the 9th Circuit. They both are horrible judges. Reinhardt needed the U.S Supreme Court to remand Fernando Belmontes' case to him 3 TIMES before he was ordered by the High Court to uphold the conviction and death sentence. Now obviously there were 2 other judges involved on the 3 Judge Panel but my concern is that this guy is always looking for the slightest little thing to overturn a sentence. You can have the best lawyer money can buy and Reinhardt would overturn the sentence based on ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The guy is a dirty Judge and I'm sure a lot of people can't wait to get rid of him. I believe he was also 1 of the idiots who ruled the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because it contained the words "Under God"

  7. #27
    Senior Member Frequent Poster stixfix69's Avatar
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    I have to say i don't think it is a rush to judgement to execute a guilty death row inmate within a 1-2 year period, seeing the trial in itself takes more than 1-3 years to finally get a verdict......And as far the blood bath, i find it hypocritical, when it is the ones on death row who are the ones guilty of Carnage, compared to the way they are put to death, which is in a much more humane way, than the victims.....

  8. #28
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Postponed execution frustrates relatives

    Melody Shadix and her son, Koda, arrived in the Polunsky Unit in Livingston on Wednesday with front row seats waiting.

    After a three-hour drive from Greenville, they were in the heart of Texas death row to see justice done - hopefully right this time, Shadix said.

    Thirteen years earlier, John Balentine, now 42, of Amarillo, shot point-blank Shadix's son and Koda's brother, Kai Geyer, 15, while he was asleep. To eliminate any witnesses, Balentine shot Mark Caylor, 17, and Steve Watson, 15, who were also in the house.

    Balentine - convicted of the killings in 1999 by a Potter County jury - was scheduled to die that afternoon. He had been on death row since 1999, and numerous state and federal appellate courts denied a slew of petitions from Balentine's attorneys to stay his execution.

    It was Shadix's first trip to death row. She could not bring herself to attend Balentine's first scheduled execution in 2009.

    "I was angry because I wasn't with my child when he died," Shadix said, weeping. "Why should I be with him (Balentine)?"

    That time, her daughter, who was driving to the Polunsky Unit, called her to say the execution had been halted on account of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. That stay was eventually lifted, and he was placed back on the state's execution schedule.

    This time, more than a decade after her son's death, she was ready to watch her child's murderer die. It was not going to happen this time, either.

    An hour before he was scheduled to die, Balentine won a reprieve Wednesday from the U.S. Supreme Court. The move will now postpone his execution indefinitely until the high court decides its next move. The court's next session begins in October.

    Shadix was notified, and she stopped in her tracks.

    "It didn't go real well," she said. "We were very upset about it. They (Polunsky officials) sort of let us calm down a little bit and then we left."

    Shadix had no qualms about anything anymore.

    "He's guilty," she said. "He's admitted he's guilty. I don't know what childhood he had. I think he ought to answer for his actions, and he was convicted by a jury of his peers. He's been in trouble all his life, and I think it's time for him to go."

    Balentine's attorney, Lydia Brandt, of Richardson, has been involved in the case since 2004. She knows it is an uphill battle, and that the only alternative for Balentine is life behind bars. That did not stop her from furiously filing petitions to have any court with jurisdiction stay the execution.

    "At least right now, John is alive," Brandt said after hearing the news.

    She has long argued that Balentine's counsel during the initial trial and during a post-conviction habeas hearing was ineffective.

    Balentine's habeas attorney, Kent Birdsong, could have conducted a new investigation and introduced evidence on Balentine's behalf. Birdsong, a prosecutor in Oldham County, later admitted not knowing what he was doing.

    "But at the time of my appointment to represent Mr. Balentine, I did not know that I needed to conduct a mitigation investigation and provide evidence in the form of affidavits or institutional records about Mr. Balentine's medical history, family and social history, educational history, employment and training history, and prior juvenile and adult correctional experience," Birdsong wrote in an affidavit this month.

    It was the only time since Balentine's conviction that his attorney could have raised new issues on an appeal, and he did nothing.

    If Balentine's state-appointed attorneys did their jobs correctly, they would have found sufficient mitigating evidence about Balentine's childhood of poverty and cognitive issues that would have persuaded at least one juror to vote against a death sentence, Brandt said.

    "Very simply, Mr. Balentine's trial counsel rested without putting on a single witness to support a life sentence, so he got death," she said.

    For Shadix and Balentine, who have never spoken, the past decade has been a series of scheduled execution dates, appeals and reprieves.

    Still, there is no telling how much longer this case will be remain pending, said Patrick Metze, an associate professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law.

    Essentially, the Balentine case is on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court decides an Arizona case with the same constitutional question.

    In the Arizona case, a man was convicted of two counts of sexual conduct with a person under 15 years old, resulting in two consecutive terms of 35 years to life in prison.

    In both cases, the men had state habeas attorneys who did nothing to appeal the convictions with new evidence when they had the chance.

    The high court must now decide if the U.S. Constitution requires defendants to have competent counsel during the highly specific process of habeas hearings.

    It is a difficult job, Metze said. Attorneys must train specifically to take up these cases, and undertaking hundreds of hours of investigative work with little pay for one case can turn off many lawyers, he said.

    In 1996, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hosted a free seminar to train lawyers to address habeas petitions.

    "They (the court) became interested in the problem, I think, because there were so many of the writs that weren't done properly," he said.

    The state's highest criminal court was bracing for "a blitz" of habeas cases, which were handed to untrained attorneys, Metze said.

    It is impossible to know how many cases like Balentine's are languishing across the country. But it is an issue bound for the Supreme Court, eventually, because it strikes at the core of our national values, Metze said.

    "The struggle here is between trying to do the right thing in a system that is designed to kill its citizens," he said. "If you're going to have a death penalty, what is the proper procedure?"

    http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/...ates-relatives

  9. #29
    Senior Member Frequent Poster stixfix69's Avatar
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    Well....I think they need to put a window of time for stays, so the victims families don't have their hearts ripped out every time there is a last minute stay. It is so unfair for them to think there will be some type of closure, then take it away from them....If they don't get a stay within 7-10 days of the execution date, then there should be no turning back, seeing they probably already had a decade to file all their appeals.......

  10. #30
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    I agree. It would be much better for all if an execution is a fixed date. All the other issues should be solved before a date will be set.

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